


Pray The Devil Will Save My Soul

by raendown



Series: MadaTobiWeek2018 [6]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 04:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15549297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: "Take your protections with you when you leave the village and never go looking for the Other Folk. If they find you…god rest your soul my son.”





	Pray The Devil Will Save My Soul

No matter how many times his father warned him about travelling through the forest at night, Madara had always taken those lectures as the ramblings of an old man with too many superstitions. He carried the medallions and the charms when Tajima thrust them upon him, he left offerings at the shrines when he was bidden to, but in his heart Madara could not bring himself to believe in things he had never seen any evidence of. It seemed perfectly clear to him that there was nothing roaming the forest surrounding their little village except shadows and the wild imaginings of men.

Staring up in to the face of the creature who had caught him, Madara regretted not listening more carefully.

Deep red eyes watched his every move, glowing jewels set in skin so white that Madara would have thought him a ghost if he hadn’t felt the solid touch of those hands on his arms, pinning him as easily as a trembling leaf. The creature was taller than he and moved with an eerie grace, almost seeming to float instead of walk.

“Many years it has been since I was sent an offering,” the creature said, its voice a rumble and a whisper at the same time. “Why pass you through my forest, human?”

“You-your forest?”

“All you see around you is mine and me. I am the soul of this forest. The trees and the air and the waters all answer my call – and you do not have the permissions to pass.”

Madara swallowed, trying to convince his body to crawl away and terrified to realize he couldn’t feel his legs. “Permissions?”

His jaw nearly unhinged in his surprise when the creature held out a hand with the palm facing up and conjured an image out of thin air. It was one of the medallions his father always tied around his neck whenever he left home, the same medallion which every one of his neighbors wore outside the walls of their village. Apparently there had been a purpose to them after all – and he did not have his this time.

When the creature closed its clawed hand the image disappeared and his eyes were drawn back to the bloody orbs glaring in to him. The thing looked hungry and he wondered if it was for his flesh or for his soul. He had no idea what he was facing. Why had he never listened to his father’s stories?

“I feel merciful today,” the creature told him. “And bored. Very bored. You will entertain me, human. You have one year to guess my name and if you guess correctly you will have your freedom. If you do not guess correctly then your life belongs to me.”

“How the hell am I supposed to guess the name of a – what the hell even are you!?”

“The spirit of this land; from mountain to mountain is my domain. You have all the clues you need to guess and I shall give you no more.”

With that eerie promise as his parting words, the spirit faded in to the air like he had never been there in the first place. Madara scrambled to his feet and spun in frantic circles, his head whipping from side to side, but there was no trace of any presence but his own. Then he brought his hands up to scrub at his face and froze with both of them hanging suspended mere inches in front of his eyes, staring at the palm of his right hand.

Perfectly centered on his pale skin there lay a small mark, black like ink although it did not smudge when he rubbed at it in his panic. It looked somewhat like a double ended pitchfork with four prongs on either side in concentric half circles and for a wild moment Madara wondered if he had been marked by the devil. Then he remembered that the creature had called itself a spirit and made an effort to pull himself together. Alright, so his life hung on the whim of a powerful spirit the likes of which he hadn’t believed in until now and he would die if he didn’t figure out the creature’s name sometime within the next year.

Setting aside the vagueness of that time frame – a year to the day? A year in seasons? From solstice to solstice? – Madara figured that this task would be easier than the spirit expected it to be. His father had been preaching nonsense about the Other Creatures since he was born; surely he would know the name of the thing he feared most?

As it turned out, he was wrong.

“Why would I ever invoke the name of a spirit?” Tajima demanded when Madara broached the subject that night. “My words could summon the beast and then where would I be?”

“Cursed,” Madara whispered, his hand clenched tightly.

“Exactly. Put this out of your mind, Madara. Take your protections with you when you leave the village and never go looking for the Other Folk. If they find you…god rest your soul my son.”

“Well? If they find me, what?”

“In that case”-Tajima looked at his son with a very serious expression-“you give the thing what it wants and you pray.”

Madara nodded, feeling the terror mount inside him. He had already prayed but the mark on his palm hadn’t so much as faded even slightly. If his father didn’t know the creature’s name then how was he meant to guess it on his own? He didn’t even know if spirits could have similar names to humans or if they had their own language. The thing had told him that he had all the clues he needed and yet he didn’t remember being given a single clue!

Over the next few weeks Madara used every spare moment to barricade himself in the public library, consuming every text and volume he could find that was even slightly devoted to the supernatural world. What he learned was much the same as his father had told him: that the only way to live was to give what had been asked of him and even then he may die on a whim.

After exhausting every resource to be found in his own small corner of the world, he could only think of two other places to go. It took several nights to work up the courage but eventually Madara made his first journey beyond the village walls since the evening he’d been caught. Around his neck he wore the medallion he had always scorned and in his hand he carried the ceremonial weapon his father believed had the power to slice through the flesh of a demon. He kept his hands clenched tightly around both as he made his way in to the forest and quickly lost sight of his home.

He still froze in place an hour later when a figure of white and red spun itself out of the air before him along the empty path, appearing between one step and the next and almost stopping his heart with fear.

“Where wander you, little human?” the spirit chuckled, drifting in a small circle without ever touching the ground.

“But…I brought my permissions this time…” Madara licked his lips nervously as he thrust the medallion forward on its leather strap. “You can’t come near me when I’m wearing this, right?”

“Not so. Permission it grants you, not protection. Those who bear the medallion are granted safe passage through my domain but I can still”-suddenly the spirit was right there, one colorless hand reaching out to stroke down the side of his chin-“touch you. Remember, little human, you belong to me.”

As quickly as it came it was suddenly gone. Madara shuddered and did not linger, turning on his heel and hurrying deeper in to the forest. It took several minutes for him to realize that he was holding a hand to his cheek where the spirit had touched him, the skin cold under his palm, and he flushed with angry embarrassment even though there was no one there to see him. It had been almost like a lover’s caress.

Not that he had a lot of experience with that sort of thing. For some reason none of the village girls had ever captured his attention the way they did for his brother. Izuna drooled over the girl at the end of the road while at nineteen Madara was still more interested in tossing rocks across the river with his best friend and getting in to wrestling matches with the other boys he’d grown up with. But that didn’t mean he wanted some random spirit touching him as it pleased!

Madara hurried along his journey, not bothering to stop for the night and travelling well in to the next day to reach the grand city of Konoha where the streets were paved and fine lords rode passed him on the backs of proud horses. Konoha had a public library just like his home village, although this one required you to donate a few coins to the local deity. After giving up his brass he made his way through the stacks until he found books on religion and the spiritual world. Just as he’d known there would be, Konoha’s library contained worlds more information than his own woods-lost home full of people more interested in working for a dollar than reading about something new.

He read until the librarians kicked him out, slept in a stable and came back the next day to do it again. For a week he continued the cycle until he had no more money to pay for the offering or buy a crust of bread for dinner. Only then did he turn for home with the flame of hope reduced to ashes in his chest. While he had learned a great many new and fascinating things, none of them had been helpful to his current situation.

The journey back through the forest was slowed by the dragging of his feet until he became aware of the eyes that watched him from the shadows. Everywhere he looked he felt as though something were waiting just out of sight to leap at him when he least expected it.

On the second day of travel the spirit found him again.

“You look for your answers in the wrong places,” a deep voice whispered, startling him away from the fire he had built as the spirit who owned him emerged from between the plumes of smoke.

“Where should I be looking?” he dared to ask. The spirit grinned at him, a pleased expression. It should not have felt like an accomplishment to please this creature.

“Look not in things crafted by human hands. My name cannot be found in any book or scroll.”

Madara sighed with frustration even as his heart pounded with fear. For a moment he thought that was to be the end of it, that the spirit might leave him alone now that it had taunted him as it did before, but instead it settled down across the fire and stood there, utterly still in its observance of him.

After a beat of silence Madara could feel his natural temper rising and overtaking the fear.

“What the hell do you even want from me?” he demanded. “Just tell me so I can give you whatever you want and _live_!”

“I will make you a trade: my reasons for your name.”

“No way! Why should I tell you my name if you won’t tell me yours? I’m not giving you any more hold over me.” Madara crossed his arms and glared, feeling bolder as his attitude went unpunished. He glared harder when the spirit gave a whispery chuckle and drifted towards him.

“A myth. Knowing your name would grant me no power over you I do not already have.”

Harrumphing suspiciously, Madara gave it some thought. All of the books he had read agreed on one thing: that spirits never lie. They concealed the truth and twisted it as it suited them but they never directly lied. If he understood this creature’s meaning then, no matter whether he gave his name or not, it already had all the hold on him that it needed. He glanced down at his palm, rubbing the mark nervously with the opposite thumb.

“Madara. My name is Uchiha Madara.” When he looked up the spirit was nowhere in sight – until he stiffened at a warm whisper in his ear.

“A beautiful name for a beautiful human.”

By the time he spun around the creature was gone and it was just him and his fire again. He slept very little that night, setting off towards home as soon as he woke to the rising sun.

With one of his ideas come to naught, Madara had only one other avenue to seek help from. Unfortunately he had spent so much time away from home that his father banned him from further travel until he had spent some time helping out in the family workshop. His week away from the forge had been a nice reprieve but he found himself immediately impatient to leave again as soon as he picked up his hammer.

It took three days, seven horseshoes, innumerable barrel rings and two daggers before he was allowed free of the hot forges again. One of the daggers had been a commission from the mayor of their village and the other had been the first lie he ever told his parents. When asked he told them that it too had been a commission from the mayor. In truth he had built it for himself. The library in Konoha had led him to a book containing all sorts of sigils meant to ward off the Other Folk. His own strange receptiveness to the spirit who claimed him had the potential to lead him in to some dangerous situations and he desperately hoped to have the means of defending himself if that ever happened.

The moment he was allowed away from the workshops again Madara was packing a bag for another trip through the forest, doing his best to answer his family’s questions without revealing his true destination. His situation was worrisome but if there was any possibility that he could solve this problem on his own then he saw no reason to worry them.

And of course, because he was starting to believe the thing laid in wait for him specifically, the spirit appeared to him no less than half an hour away from home.

Strangely enough, it seemed to have nothing to say this time. If he hadn’t been able to see the movement from the corner of one eye he might not have even noticed it pacing along beside him, feet not quite touching the earth, silent as the grave. Madara could feel it watching him constantly as he walked but it wasn’t causing him any harm nor was it trying to bar his path so he kept his head up high and stayed the course for a while. If the creature wasn’t going to speak then he didn’t see why he should either.

As they came in sight of his intended destination the spirit drifted away, stopping at the edge of the clearing and watching him proceed with narrowed eyes glinting with humor. Madara peeked over his shoulder as he approached the tiny wooden hut but since it did nothing but float there and stare at him he shrugged and knocked on the door.

Then he winced at the sound of a resounding crash from inside.

“Whoops! Coming, hold o- whoops again! Oh dear, that’ll need re-growing.” Madara was slumped in resignation before the door even opened to reveal a man much too dark-skinned for how little sunlight he must receive in the dead of the forest. “Madara! What brings you here?”

“He does,” he replied, jerking a thumb over one shoulder. The man peered over his shoulder with squinting eyes and then looked back at him in confusion.

“There’s no one there.”

Madara spun around to see that he was right; the spirit had finally disappeared. With an aggravated sigh he stormed passed his friend and in to the cabin, inviting himself to sit upon the only chair in the open concept home.

“You know a lot about the Other Folk, right?”

His friend closed the door with an odd tittering laugh, like he knew something Madara didn’t. “Oh yes. I know more than you could ever imagine about the Other Folk, some things you would never believe. Were you looking to learn about something in particular?”

Just as he opened his mouth to reply, he was cut off when the hapless man stumbled on an overturned cauldron lying on the floor and went crashing down, making the same clattering noise Madara had heard through the door before. Without even bothering to get up Madara tilted his head to one side and gave his friend a look of wry exasperation.

“You alright, Hashirama?”

“I’m fine!”

“Whatever. I need to know how you figure out a spirit’s name.”

“Oh?” Hashirama rose to his feet with a much more cautious expression than before.

After a moment of hesitation, Madara wordlessly held out his hand for the man to inspect. If there was anyone it was safe to share his secret with then it would be Hashirama. No one else in the village liked talking to him, calling him a crazy hermit with his head up in the clouds, so it wasn’t like the man would go around blabbing his business to people. He was also the only person Madara had ever met who had come face to face with those of the Other Folk and survived. Some of the tales he had to tell would raise the hair on the back of anyone’s neck.

Hashirama took his hand in a gentle grasp and looked at the strange double ended pitchfork in the center of his palm for a very long time, completely expressionless for the first time since Madara had known him. Something clouded his eyes after several minutes had passed and he slowly closed his fingers over the mark. When at last he spoke it was with a heavy voice.

“You have been marked by a Senju spirit, the most powerful family of spirits,” he said.

“They come in families?” Madara jerked and fluttered his other hand through the air as though to wave that question aside. “Wait, is that the thing’s name!?”

“No, not his name. There is only one who would put this mark on you, only one who would do so within this forest, and his name is not ‘Senju’. That is only what his family is called.”

Squirming, Madara returned to the question he had shoved aside. “I had no idea that spirits could have families. I thought they just…existed. Like the gods.” His feet kicked absently at the chair legs beneath him while he watched his friend think for a moment.

“How to explain it? The spirits were born when the land was formed, each to protect their own part of the world but for The One Who Roams Free, the most powerful spirit of all. Their families are not quite mother and father and children the way humans’ are; rather, they use the term family to refer to a level of strength. And you appear to have caught the attention of one with very few matches to his power.”

“But do you know its name? All I have to do is guess its name and it says I can go free.”

“Freedom is…not always what you think it is,” Hashirama cautioned him. “What were the terms if you fail to give him the correct answer?”

“It said my life would belong to it.”

“Oh my.”

Madara stilled, his back going ramrod straight and his eyes blowing wide with panic. “What does 'oh my' mean!? Is that bad?” He was startled to hear Hashirama laugh.

“I cannot give you the spirits name but know this: to lose at this game would not be as bad as you think.”

“What the hell is that supposed to – never mind. Why can’t you tell me the thing’s name? If you know so much about it and its family then how can you not know its name?”

His pleas were for naught. Hashirama said nothing more, only spread his hands in a helpless gesture and shook his head. Madara grunted in annoyance to cover the black despair creeping up within him. Coming here had been his last ray of hope and that little light had gone out with Hashirama’s words. There was nowhere else for him to turn for answers.

Feeling like his stomach were full of sinking sand and his heart were made of lead, Madara rose from his chair to stagger towards the door. “You turned out to be useless,” he growled. Hashirama knew him well enough to take no offense.

Actually, he wasn’t sure Hashirama was even capable of taking offense to anything.

Only two minutes down the road after storming away from the hut, the spirit appeared directly in his path with a strangely soft smile and a curious tilt to his head, forcing him to stop and face its questions.

“Why do you frown so, Madara?” The way his name rolled off the thing’s tongue made him shiver pleasantly. He sort of hated the way he liked it.

“Your stupid game is impossible. Not even Hashirama knows your name and he knows everything about your kind! How the hell am I supposed to _guess_ your name!?” One of his feet stamped on the forest path, drawing the spirit’s burning eyes for a moment before they lifted to bore in to his own again.

“Ahhh. Worried was I that Hashirama would tell you my name but it seems even he intends to respect the proper way of things.”

“Why do you never make any sense!?”

Both his arms waved through the air in frustration, serving only to amuse the spirit further. Madara shook his fist at the thing, knowing it was a futile gesture but needing some kind of outlet for his anger. Puzzles and mind games had never been something he enjoyed.

Instead of gloating as he assumed it might, the spirit drifted closer until it could reach out and brush the tip of one finger against his reddening cheeks. Madara knew that if it were anyone else he would have jerked back and slapped the hand away, yelled at them for touching him, yet he felt no urge to do so now. As soon as the creature touched him he felt calmer. He felt content to simply stand there and let his eyes roam the spirit from head to toe, observing him in detail for the first time.

Until now he hadn’t truly noticed that it was wearing clothes, albeit very little. A short kilt of pale blue cloth shimmered like water around its waist and dew gathered in little droplets on the top of its feet. Long fingers and short hair, rising in spikes around a perfect face.

Despite the human form it took there was an aura which spoke of Otherness, something ethereal in the soft glow of its white skin and the burning red of its eyes, the sharpness of its teeth when pale lips parted under his gaze. Madara shook his head harshly when he found himself wondering if those lips were warm or if they would feel cold against his own. What was he doing wondering what it would feel like to kiss a _spirit_?

“Hashirama called you a ‘him’,” he said.

“So caught up in gender and form are you humans. Yes, you may consider me a male if you have need of a label.”

“Can’t you just give me something to call you? A nickname or a wrong name even?”

“I will hear nothing but my own name from you, Madara.” The spirit leveled him with a heavy look and Madara shivered again, rubbing at his arms.

“What if I never come back in to the forest? If I stay inside the village walls for the rest of my life would I…never see you again?”

“Humans build walls and think themselves safe but my lands were here long before your kind and if you think yourself hidden in your village you are wrong, Madara. Very wrong.” It grinned and reached up to touch his cheek once more before shifting backwards and drifted away. “Run home little human, if you must, but I will always find you if I need to.”

In the next moment he disappeared and Madara was left listening to the rhythm of his own pounding heart, trying to convince himself that it was fear he was feeling. Only when the spirit was gone did he realize that he had felt no desire to flee, no impatience to continue his journey so long as the creature stayed close.

What was wrong with him?

Even worse, he’d forgotten to demand the other answers he intended to. The last time they had seen each other the spirit had promised to reveal its reasons for trapping him in this game. He should have guessed at the time that it would use the phrasing of its own offer to weasel out of it. All it had said was that it would tell him those reasons; it had never specified when. The thought of having to wait until his actual death just to figure out the reasons behind it wasn’t a pleasant one.

As he had been bidden, Madara fled home as fast as his legs would carry him. By the time he reached his family home he had managed to compose himself enough that his brother did little more than wave at him distractedly as he walked through the door, not noticing anything was wrong. Madara slipped away to his own room and buried himself within the sheets, staring at the wall and wondering if he was losing his mind.

None of the books had said anything about _losing_ your fear of the spirit who marked you. Quite the opposite: they all seemed to agree that the longer it had been since receiving the mark, the more people tended to go mad with terror. Madara certainly wouldn’t call himself a coward by any means but he was no iron-willed hero of legend either; by all accounts he should be gibbering in his bed, not intrigued by the idea of seeing the manifestation of his doom spread across it. Could this possibly be his own unique form of madness?

Time behaved strangely over the next few days, each second stretching out in to an eternity. Madara spent endless hours staring out whatever window was closest until he finally understood the cause of his own distracted state. The forest called to him. He felt the pull of wanderlust as he lay in bed at night and thought up excuses to head for the trees as he worked in the forge during the day. What frustrated him was that he knew that the moment he set foot outside the village walls the spirit would appear, as it had all the other times before, yet it had said that it could find him here as well. So why hadn’t it? With no way to call the creature to him he had no way to ask.

Except, perhaps he did have a way. Madara startled up out of that ephemeral state between sleeping and awake almost a full week after his visit with Hashirama and bit his lip to muffle a triumphant gasp. It wouldn’t do to wake his brother in the next room, to be discovered should his idea work. His legs tangled in the blankets for a moment before he managed to swing them out and down on to the floor, sitting upright on the edge of the bed while he cradled the palm of his right hand.

Black ink stared back at him, darker than the night itself, and Madara took a deep breath before firmly pressed his opposite thumb in to the center, hoping. He wasn’t even entirely sure it would work or if maybe there was some other step he was missing but he stayed still and closed his eyes, waiting all the same.

“Have you need of me, Madara?”

His eyes snapped open to see that his half-cocked idea had actually succeeded; the spirit stood in his bedroom with its toes only just brushing the ground and its lips twisted up in a smug expression. Immediately he felt his heart beat faster, blood pounding in his ears.

“You came,” he breathed, still holding a thumb to his palm as though letting go would cause this vision to disappear. The spirit chuckled and drifted closer.

“For you, always,” it whispered. Madara swallowed thickly. “Have you a question you wish to ask?”

“Not really. I just wanted…”

“To see me,” it finished his sentence for him confidently.

Licking his lips and squirming, Madara wondered what he could say to make the spirit stay. With a note of desperation in his voice he said, “Tell me a story.”

For a moment all the creature in his room did was blink at him, one eyebrow arching slowly. Then just as Madara feared he might disappear he parted his lips and began to speak in a voice that suddenly carried the weight of all the many centuries he had seen.

As asked, he told Madara a story, the story of The One Who Roams Free and how he was created differently from the other spirits of his kind. Where most of the Senju were created to watch over their own part of the earth, He Who Roams Free was born to represent the world as a whole. Madara listened raptly to the tale of a spirit who stood above all others yet chose to use his power for nothing more than living alongside humanity in peace. A soft heart, the creature called him, and Madara was inclined to agree.

When the story came to an end he fought back a yawn and demanded another. The creature bared his teeth in a sharp smile and drifted forward to slide a palm under Madara’s chin.

“Perhaps more I shall tell you – another time. For now you must rest. Sleep, my chosen.”

“But I don’t–” Madara’s protest was cut off by a yawn, belying the word he’d been about to say. He was half scowling, half pouting as a pale thumb stroked the line of his jaw and very gently guided him back to lie on the bed.

“Sleep,” his spirit repeated in a whisper. “I will come when again you call.”

The last thing he saw before slipping in to dreams was a soft, fond smile and burning red eyes watching over him. Despite knowing what this creature was – and that it held his life in his hand – he had never felt more safe. He dreamed he could feel someone stroking his hair and a deep voice whispering sweet things in his ear.

Another week later and Madara could admit reluctantly that he might be growing a bit of an obsession with the thing he was meant to be escaping from. Every night as soon as it was late enough not to be suspicious he would retreat to his bedroom and press his thumb in to the mark, calling to the spirit and praying each time that it would answer. When it did appear he would demand stories. He had spent the last seven days listening to tales of bolds adventurers, learning how the rivers in the surrounding forest had changed over time, and devouring any small bit of information he could capture about his companion.

Information came with a price but it was one Madara found himself more and more willing to pay. What harm could come of allowing the spirit to sit close, to lay a hand across his wrist or play with the ends of his long hair? It wasn’t exactly a hardship when every touch left him craving more anyway. He felt as though he were the one being granted a favor as he sat and listened to that rumbling voice tell him about the people who had first built his village, eyes closed to enjoy the feeling of fingers weaving his hair in to a thick braid.

When the story was done he felt a light touch on the back of his shoulder and opened his eyes, turning his head only to freeze in place again upon finding the spirit with his chin over Madara’s shoulder, wicked grin showing off rows of sharp teeth.

“Shall we play another game?” he asked. Madara blinked.

“A game?”

“Many times have I come when you called. Will you do so in return, I wonder?” When Madara opened his mouth to answer the spirit reached around and pressed a cool finger to his lips. For a moment he was distracted by wondering what those digits would taste like if he drew them in and suckled. “Trust your instincts and always will you find me. I’ll be waiting, my chosen.”

He was gone in an instant, dissolving in to nothing and leaving Madara feeling bereft in a way he couldn’t explain. Lifting his own fingers to press at the cool spot on his lips, he stared at the palm of his free hand and breathed deeply to calm his racing heart. It wasn’t even a question of yes or no.

When his spirit called to him he knew that he would go.

The next two days were agony, each moment spent inside the hot forge with his head outside in the trees until finally – _finally_ – he nearly dropped a pair of heavy cast iron tongs when he felt a cold sensation pooling in his right palm. Since the set of hinges he was making would be ruined if he stopped halfway through he was forced to continue on with his work, jittering and twitching until finally he was able to remove the heavy leather forge apron and bolt out of the workshop.

Izuna called after to ask him where he was going and Madara faltered.

“Uh…I just…remembered where I saw father’s good rounding hammer?”

“Oh. Yeah you should probably run. He’s been looking for that for days now.”

Nodding frantically, he bolted again. Hopefully by the time he came back he would have thought of a good excuse for why he’s spent so much time away but hadn’t found the rounding hammer. But that was something to worry about later. For now his mind was on keeping his footing as he flew across the village towards the woods to the east.

He wasn’t sure why he’d chosen to go east when all the other times he had met with the spirit it had been more to the west but didn’t bother questioning it. If this was the direction he felt was right then it probably was. Who was he to say how the mark on his hand worked?

Just under a half kilometer in to the trees his instincts were rewarded by a breath of chilled air across the back of his neck. Madara spun around to see the spirit there in front of him, baring its teeth in what he had come to recognize as a friendly smile. Before either of them spoke it took a moment to caress the side of his face as it seemed to enjoy doing. He wasn’t sure if it was trying to absorb the warmth from his skin or if it just enjoyed having some sort of contact with someone but either way he never minded.

“As I have come to you, so do you come to me,” the spirit whispered, so close Madara could almost lean forward and bop their noses together.

“I wanted to see you.” At least this time he was able to admit it for himself.

Sometimes it occurred to him to wonder if the creature was slowly putting him under a spell, taking over his mind so that he became a willing slave. It seemed suspicious that he could go from afraid and desperate for escape to seeking out the being which sought to trap him.

Yet no matter how much he pondered the matter he couldn’t bring himself to believe that it was true, even if it should have been the most likely scenario. The yearning felt too genuine, this desire to spend more and more time with the spirit, and the more he learned about the other the less Madara feared him. Between the confidence and the endless amusement it took in his human flailing he caught glimpses of a great deal of loneliness.

More often lately he’d begun to question, when his year came due, if the spirit truly intended to kill him. It spent an awful lot of time with him if it only intended him to be dead soon. Of course, a single year was but the blinking of an eye to a being such as him and he could have been playing with his new toy for a bit of fun until he grew bored but Madara chose to believe in what his gut told him.

The spirit took his hand and Madara let him, willing to follow. More than that: he was willing to trust.

Knowing they could both call for each other if they wanted changed the way Madara lived. It took a few weeks before anyone mentioned how little time he had been spending with his friends, how often he seemed to disappear in to the woods, but he never offered any explanation. Most people had their own suspicions as to what he was doing and since he didn’t really care for their opinions he found it easiest to simply let them think what they wanted. Explaining the truth would have been much harder – not to mention dangerous.

If anyone were to find out he was making friends with one of the Other Folk they would either run him out of town for a freak like Hashirama or lock him in the asylum. Neither of those sounded particularly fun to him.

Whatever his friends and family thought he was doing, Madara cared very little. His days were filled with trips through the forest, trailing his fingers in the streams and listening to the spirit tell him where the winds came from. His evenings were filled with a rumbling voice whispering stories in his ear as he fell asleep, stroking his hair or even sometimes holding his hand. In time it became strange for them to spend more than an hour together without some kind of physical contact.

Six months after the day they met Madara lay on his mattress at home with his head pillowed on a cool white thigh, staring up at the spirit and thinking to himself that it would not be so bad to belong to him. He would happily spend what little time was left of his life doing exactly this. If he were cursed to die in another half year then at least he would die happily.

The creature paused its story to look down at him questioningly.

“What thoughts have put such a wistful smile on your face, Madara?”

“I like how you say my name,” he noted absently. It earned him a smile and a gentle reproving tug on the ends of his hair.

“That was not an answer to my question.”

“I was thinking that I’m glad I met you that day.”

He wasn’t surprised by the fingers that stroked across his cheeks, tracing the shape of his jaw and trailing down his neck to caress the pulse fluttering just under the skin. The spirit smiled and he admired the sharpness of those teeth, the perfect white lips which parted to reveal them.

“As am I.”

“Will you remember me when I die?”

Clearly his companion had not been expecting that question. Madara delighted in being able to surprise the other and laughed at the way red eyes blinked rapidly, staring down at him with blank incomprehension.

“Your life belongs to _me_ , human. I say when you are allowed to die.”

Really, he shouldn’t have found that so comforting. Any sane person would have frozen in fear at the reminder of their own fragility and the fact that his life lay in the hands of a being ancient enough to remember a time before humanity walked the earth. Instead, Madara thought smugly that his spirit would protect him in the case that someone tried to do him harm before his time was up.

Time continued to pass quickly as Madara gave more and more of himself to a creature he didn’t even know the name of. When his family started asking more pointed questions he made an effort to spend a few evenings with them every so often to allay their fears and give them something to remember of him. When he was gone he didn’t want their last memories of him to be of his back as he left home again and again only to disappear without a trace.

Eight months after he received his mark, with four months left to live, Madara was swimming in a secluded forest pool while the spirit watched from the bank when a snapping twig nearly startled him in to drawing a lungful of water. He spluttered and coughed until his companion drifted through the air to gently caress his back, drawing the water back up out of his lungs like he was beckoning a puppy.

“Oh no! No, no, little twig! I’m so sorry!” The voice so full of sadness was familiar, if not expected. Madara glared southward to where Hashirama was now standing, moaning at the ground underneath his foot.

“Already dead was the twig,” the spirit pointed out in an oddly dry tone. Hashirama looked up with wide, watery eyes, not looking surprised in the least to find himself face to face with such a creature. Madara supposed he was used to it after all of his experiences with the Other Folk.

“But I broke it even more! The poor thing!”

The spirit rolled his eyes as he drifted back to the bank and settled down where he had been before. Bereft at the loss of the touches to his back, Madara swam after him and settled next to the creature’s knee, leaning against it even though it only made him chilly in the already cold water. Hashirama continued to pout and moan until the movement drew his eye and he caught sight of Madara at last.

“Oh! Hello!” He paused and looked back and forth between then, a wide smile spreading across his face. “Oh. Hello. It appears you’ve made peace with your future, eh Madara?”

Before he could answer, his friend spoke for him.

“My human is no business of yours. His life has been claimed as my own. Do your poaching from another of the family; I will _fight_ you for this one.” A pale arm wound about his shoulders and Madara leaned further in to the creature even as he furrowed his brows in confusion.

“Poaching?” he asked. Hashirama laughed nervously and rubbed at the back of his head.

“Ah, ha ha! I did apologize for that. Well, I wasn’t really sorry but I _did_ apologize! Still don’t regret it though.”

“Hn.”

Even more confused, Madara scowled at being ignored by both of them. “What are you doing here, old man? Shouldn’t you be at home doing whatever crazy people do?”

“I expect I was doing much the same as the two of you: seeking a little solitude.” Madara gave him a disbelieving look. He lived alone; his entire life was nothing but solitude. “And speaking of, you seem to be getting along a lot better than the last time I saw you.”

“A fat lot of help you were then, too.” Madara scoffed.

“Did you want my help now?” Hashirama asked, a knowing look in his eyes. It took effort not to make a rude gesture at him but Madara would have needed his hands for that and they appeared to have wound their way around the spirit’s dangling ankle, clutching tightly. He settled for a dismissive sniff.

“No, as a matter of fact, I do not.”

“Well then, I suppose I’ll be on my way. Watch out for the trees on the north bank of the Naka, they’re feisty today!”

Madara rubbed at the bridge of his nose and resisted asking how trees could be feisty. His eyes were only closed for a handful of seconds but when he opened them Hashirama was gone again as though he’d never been there. With a small noise of wonder, Madara looked up at his companion instead.

“I had no idea he could move so quietly. He’s always tripping on things whenever I see him.”

“The art of walking is confusing to one who spends much of their time without,” was the answer he got. Madara stuck out his bottom lip.

“You know, you don’t always have to say everything really cryptic. You _can_ just say something that makes sense every once in a while. Just for the novelty of it. And for my sanity.” He stuck his lip out further when a thin finger pressed against it.

“And where would the fun be in that?”

Madara glared but said nothing else. His lips were busy.

When he had two months left of his life he found himself torn between spending as much time with his friend as possible or doing the same with his family. Both were important to him and it didn’t matter who he was with; his thoughts were forever tangled halfway between. Still, despite rushing to make as many memories as he could and feeling like it was never enough, he enjoyed each day to the fullest. There was a certain freedom from caring which came with knowing he would die soon.

It was what gave him the courage to push the boundaries when the spirit came to him that evening. He’d noticed a long time ago that, while the creature seemed to have some sort of obsession with touching him in any way it could, it never did anything he that might make him uncomfortable. Unlike when they had first met when even standing closer had sent him reeling backwards, now Madara was the one finding ways to subtly hint that more would be okay.

Subtlety was for those who had time, however, which he did not. Madara waited until the spirit had drifted over to settle next to him on the bed, reminded himself not to blush, and turned to bury his head in the other’s chest, wrapping both arms around him. After a moment of still silence he relaxed when two arms wrapped around him in return.

“Does the little human wish for a hug?” a deep voice rumbled in his ear.

“Shut up.”

“Ah. Embarrassment.” His eyes squeezed tighter when something brushed softly against the top of his head. “Be not ashamed of the things you desire. Ask and you shall receive.”

Madara squirmed and didn’t say anything at first. Then he whispered, “Will you hold me until I fall asleep?” He felt something brush his head again and wondered if the spirit was nuzzling his hair. Picturing it sent a rush of warmth to some very strange places in his body, which he did his best not to think about – not yet, at least. Those were thoughts for when he was truly alone.

“For the rest of your days,” his spirit answered.

He never felt the movement but suddenly they were lying down and Madara melted down in to his dreams with his hot skin wrapped around the cool body of his most precious person, a spirit of the forest, and resting his head against the shoulder of a creature he hadn’t even believed in until a mere ten months before.

With three weeks to live Madara crawled in to the creature’s lap and curled up there to sit in silence for hours at a time, basking in their closeness. He’d been quieter lately as the days he had left dwindled. More and more often he chose to simply observe or listen to others, to memorize the gestures they made or the expressions on their face or, in the case of the one who held him both physically and metaphorically, to imprint the sensation of their skin and the shape of their limbs.

It was little surprise when the change in his behavior did not go unnoticed.

“For too long have you been silent, Madara. What thoughts have you in your mind of late?”

“Do you ever talk normal or have you always talked in those weird backward sentences?”

“Language was different at its conception but that is not the answer I was seeking. Look at me.” Madara unfurled his body enough to rest his head against the spirit’s shoulder and meet his burning red eyes. “You are saddened.”

“I don’t want to go,” he admitted. Accepting it and wanting it were two very different things. Making peace with his death did not mean he was free from the emotional upheaval of facing it.

One of the arms holding him let go only to gently push the hair back from his face and stroke his jaw.

“And if you did not have to go what would you do with the time given to you?”

“I dunno. Stay with you. Visit my brother sometimes.”

“You would stay here with me in the forest with none of the comforts of your village or home?”

Madara wriggled until both arms held him again. “I wouldn’t need any ‘comforts’; I’d have you.” To spend endless days and nights with this creature sounded like a dream to him, even if they did nothing more with their time than drift from place to place and he never saw another human being again.

Beneath him, the spirit hummed and tucked him in closer until he smiled and forgot to be melancholy for a few more hours. Neither of them brought up the subject again but Madara got the impression that his friend approved of such simple dreams. The spirit came to him that night without being called, waiting in his room as soon as he returned and welcoming him in to its arms again to soothe him in to dreams.

When he woke he was alone but the sheets still carried a familiar smell and he wondered if the sound of his brother knocking at the door was all that prevented him from waking as he had slept, gently cradled by his own doom.

In the kitchen of Madara’s home there hung a homemade calendar drawn in a rough hand. The dates were carefully inked in and the boxes for most of the days held the names of people their family were supposed to deliver purchases and repaired items to. For the past twelve months Madara had watched his mother mark off the days as they drew to a close and felt the slash of her pencil as though it were physically cutting off another portion of his lifespan.

Today he stood looking at the line and marveled that he wasn’t more upset about it. Three hundred and sixty five days ago he had met a spirit in the woods who claimed his life and marked his hand so he could never forget his fate. Now here he was on his very last day, the day he would die, standing calmly in an empty house and idly fiddling with the dishes he’d said he would wash. Washing dishes seemed a ridiculous activity for his last day on earth and still he had offered.

Even in all the time he’d been given, he still hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell his family. It wasn’t even the fact that he feared they might cry – or possibly celebrate, in Izuna’s case. Rather, it was the fact that he really didn’t want to give his father the opportunity to say ‘I told you so’.

After tearing his eyes away from the calendar and doing the dishes as he’d said he would, Madara gave some thought to stepping over to the workshop just to see his family one last time. He had even turned and taken a step in that direction when he stopped himself. They might not have realized but he’d already said his goodbyes to all of them over breakfast, making sure to speak to each of them at least once and keeping his words soft and kind, a final memory none of them could regret. If he went to see them now he feared they might sense something was off.

So, alone even if he knew it wasn’t for long, Madara left the house and headed towards the village gates. Ironically today was his day off from duties in the forge, giving him the perfect excuse to have a bit of time for himself, and he appreciated not having to sneak around to accomplish his own death. When he made it to the forest he walked only far enough within until he could no longer see any traces of the village behind him.

Then he pressed his left thumb in to his right palm and smiled wistfully as another body immediately fitted itself in to the space behind him. Madara leaned back, trusting him friend would not let him fall.

“You are both happy and unhappy,” the spirit noted.

“Is anyone happy to die?” he snapped reflexively. Then he sighed. “I never guessed your name. After Hashirama couldn’t help me I didn’t know where else to look. In fact, I stopped even trying to look for answers a long time ago.”

“And this makes you unhappy.”

Madara turned on the spot and threw his arms around the creature’s shoulders, pressing his face in to a cool white neck. “Will you at least tell me what your name is? I might as well know what it is I’m dying for, right?”

One hand burrowed its way underneath his hair to cup the back of his neck while another pressed in to the small of his back, holding him tightly.

“Your hands held the clue from the day we met. Tell me, what do your people call the mountain ranges to the east and to the west?” A thumb stroked the back of his neck and Madara blinked in confusion.

“We call them The Doors because the pass between them is the only safe way to travel to the countries beyond.”

“And between the two of them is?”

“Uh…you said everything between them is the land you’re supposed to watch over, right?”

The neck his face was buried in shivered with a rumbling laugh and Madara looked up in annoyance, unhappy to be laughed at. He scowled until both of the hands holding him shifted and skimmed across his body to frame his face, bringing him within a hairsbreadth of the spirit’s smile, stealing his breath with a sharp smile he really shouldn’t want to taste so badly.

“Aye. I am the space between two doors,” the spirit whispered. “My name is Tobirama of the Senju spirits and you, Madara of the Uchiha line, are my chosen. I have chosen well.”

For a few heartbeats all Madara could do was stare. He really had held the only clue he needed the entire time. Now that he knew, it was so obvious he felt like hitting himself for not seeing it. But he didn’t because he had limited time and much more important things to do with it; things like catching his breath in his lungs as he whispered the spirit’s name for the first time.

“Tobirama,” he breathed, full of wonder.

“Yes?”

“Nothing, I was just…I just wanted to say it.”

“I see.”

“At least I got to say it before I die.”

Tobirama lifted one eyebrow and his eyes sparkled with amusement but he didn’t have time to make any response. The moment between them was broken by a hearty guffaw somewhere to the right. Madara’s head snapped around to see none other than Hashirama there with them, as silent as he had been the last time and just as unrepentant for intruding on their privacy.

Rubbing his belly to soothe away a stitch of laughter, the hermit leaned against a tree and shook his head.

“You really let him believe he was going to die right up until the end, huh? I knew you were nasty but I never knew you were that nasty.”

“Eh!?”

“Truth is neither friend nor foe. And I never once told him he would die, he assumed that for himself.” Tobirama sniffed and gave Hashirama a narrow-eyed glare, to which the man only snickered again.

“An assumption you never once thought to correct,” he noted.

Backing out of his companion’s hold, Madara chewed on his lip while his mind raced wildly. “I’m…not going to die? But you said–!”

“That your life would belong to me if I won our game. I did. And it does. To the victor go the spoils and, as the spoils happen to be your mortality, to me it falls to decide whether you live or die.” Tobirama’s grin turned smug. “If I choose for you to live until the earth crumbles and the seas run dry then that is what shall come to pass.”

“You…are an asshole.” Madara crossed his arms and tried had to look upset. Which was hard to do considering the elation running up and down his spine at the moment. “All this time I’ve been _waiting to die_ and you’ve been sitting on that little gem without saying anything!?”

“Not entirely correct. Death would have found you if I wished it. You would have been granted freedom if you had guessed my name within the year. It was not always certain that your life would belong to me as I desired.”

“Semantics! You still could have said something!”

No matter how much he pouted, however, it didn’t seem like Tobirama felt bad about his decision to stay quiet.

“I had to be sure,” he murmured, reaching out to cup Madara’s face.

“Ah, that sounds like it’s my fault again,” Hashirama chipped in with a note of regret in his voice.

Tobirama sent him another glare. “It is.”

“How the hell is this his fault?” Madara demanded. His spirit scoffed while the other man whined, his entire body drooping comically in a picture of exasperation.

“Seriously, you’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“Mito was chosen by me and you removed my mark to place your own. Granted, Madara is much better suited, but that does not excuse your actions.”

“Can you blame me?” Hashirama grinned cheekily.

“What the hell do you mean he placed his own mark? Removed yours? All of the books I read said that nothing could remove a spirit’s curse mark except another spirit! And that they would have to be at least of equal power! Aren’t you supposed to be from, like, the most powerful family of spirits?” Madara huffed and stomped and tried not to burst from the confusion.

Just learning that he wasn’t going to die had been enough to try and wrap his head around. Now there was even more new information to throw him through a wild loop and he could hardly figure out what the hell these two were talking about.

All he wanted to do was to hug Tobirama and throttle him at the same time, was that too much to ask?

Evidently it was because Hashirama chose that moment to look away and whistle innocently in the manner which usually meant he was anything but innocent. Tobirama’s eyes were just a little too wide to not be holding secrets when Madara looked over at him and that sealed it.

“What?” Madara growled. His two companions shared a look and Tobirama spoke first.

“Your books did not lie in that respect. Only a spirit may remove another’s mark.” He shrugged, an almost dainty motion. “Brother is most unique in many ways.”

“BROTHER!?”

“Gotta go!”

Hashirama disappeared with a cackle, dissolving in to the air the same way Tobirama did. Only when he was left staring at the spot where the man had been did Madara look down and realize that there were no footsteps on the forest floor, no signs of disturbance to indicate any kind of creature had passed through the loam. That asshole had been floating above the ground the same way Tobirama did and Madara had never even noticed.

Looking up at his companion, Madara lifted one eyebrow expectantly. He got an amused look instead of the ashamed contrition he was hoping for.

“He Who Roams Free has domain over all there is in the world yet chooses to spend most of his days badgering me and visiting the human he chose to take as a companion – a human he stole from me. Appearing as nothing more than an eccentric human himself amuses him.”

“Oh my god. That fucking–! He said he couldn’t tell me your name!”

All the books he had read when he’d been desperately searching for a way to break the curse had all agreed that spirits never lie – and he supposed Hashirama hadn’t lied. He’d never said that he didn’t know the name, only that he couldn’t say. What a dirty rotten way to weasel around the truth. Madara snarled to himself in rage until two hands caught his face against and Tobirama drifted to him to press their foreheads together.

“You told me that if you lived you would spend your life with me. Is that still your wish?”

“I might hit you a couple times if you pull some shit like that again,” he snapped. Then he softened and reached up to curl his arms around Tobirama’s shoulders. “But…yes. If you don’t think you’d get bored of me.”

“Bored? What nonsense is this? I chose you, Madara; I shall never grow bored of you.”

“Uh, yeah, you guys keep using that word and – chosen for what, exactly?”

“To be my companion. You will never age, never die. For as long as you wish to remain in this world you will stay by my side and spend your days with me.”

Madara grinned, warm and tingling from the center of his chest to the tips of his toes. “Then I guess Hashirama was right about one thing; that doesn’t sound so bad. He’s still an idiot, though.”

“I will not correct you on something you are not wrong about.”

A laugh bubbled up and escaped him before he had time to stop it. Madara closed his eyes until the mirth had passed only to see two eyes of red burning in to him with an intensity both new and familiar. He licked his lips, Tobirama’s gaze falling to observe the motion, and the tingling inside of him only increased.

When Tobirama kissed him he wasn’t so much surprised as he was relieved. It felt as though he’d been waiting for this moment his entire life without even knowing it, falling in love without admitting it, and to finally express it was a joy so intense he very nearly swooned like a young maiden. Luckily he caught himself on Tobirama’s shoulders, shivering under the hands that traced the length of his body to wrap around his waist and hold tight.

This was where he belonged. All the years he had spent in the village feeling like he was meant for more than just slaving over a hot forge, finally he felt vindicated. He wondered how long Tobirama had been watching him all the times he’d gone hunting in the woods, waiting for the day he would forget the small, insignificant token which kept them apart. One thought led to another, however, and Madara pulled away reluctantly with something new in mind, something equally important.

“Will I see my family again?” he asked. Tobirama ghosted cool lips against his temple.

“As often as you wish. If you choose to continue on in the patterns we have already been following then I will not speak against it. But I will caution you: humans are a suspicious race and they will notice eventually that you do not age.”

“I can pull it off for a few years at least,” he protested. “Hopefully at some point I’ll figure out a way to tell them the truth. I mean, at least I won’t be dead, right?”

“Nothing will ever harm you again,” Tobirama promised, and Madara believed him.

Later the thought of sudden immortality would hit him harder and he would undoubtedly have a hundred more questions to ask. When next he saw Hashirama he very much planned to give the idiot an earful about being overly mysterious and answering questions more directly. For that matter, he would be giving the same lecture to the creature leaning down to take his mouth in another kiss.

At the moment, however, Madara was content to let reality slide away as he melted against the one to whom he would devote the rest of his long, long life.


End file.
